


drowning against all instinct

by regretterien (Meowmessenger)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: BAMF Arthur (Inception), Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Complicated Relationships, First Meetings, M/M, Military Backstory, Past Relationship(s), but not really???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29586228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meowmessenger/pseuds/regretterien
Summary: Arthur's heart is a hotel; Eames realises he cannot book up all the rooms.(Though perhaps just one would be enough.)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception), Arthur/Mal Cobb (Past), Dom Cobb/Mal Cobb
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	drowning against all instinct

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started off with me titling a document 'metaphors make a man' and writing a load of - you've guessed it! - metaphors. I didn't expect it to turn into a ~6k fic but I acc really enjoyed writing it :)
> 
> Also, I made a playlist: half are songs that I listened to whilst writing this and heavily influenced it and the other half are songs that were added after the fact. The playlist is set out so that it vaguely follows the storyline, and you can listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0kC4bKS1bPfBmVBJd9KHIM?si=6nzYlqP_Qxi7LOJ_GxUnVw).

Eames is so young when he meets Arthur, but Arthur, who always must try and best him at every turn, is younger still. At first, Eames does not view him as a threat. He is a sheathed knife, too much of a child to be dangerous, too much of an adult to not be self-conscious. He is nothing, yet. He is a boy in a half-suit, playing the role of a half-man.

Eames wonders if it is a cruel joke, at first. A needless prank that everyone but Arthur is in on. He is a toy, a plaything, a ballerina gone walkabout into some unsavoury barracks.

Yet Arthur does not back down. He dares you to envision him on his knees, warns you that the image will cost you blood. Eames does not take him seriously, cannot bring himself to.

Arthur strikes where it hurts. His tongue is dripped in poison, serrated. It catches you and rips apart the skin as he withdraws, implanting the toxins deep in the flesh. Eames becomes wary. He dances around the edge of the cage, unable to take his eyes away.

Arthur’s actions surpass his words. When he splinters his eyes turn black and the jagged wooden shards impale everything unfortunate enough to be in his orbit. There is a startling speed, accuracy, efficiency to every single movement. Not a second or shot is wasted. He plays chess with the projections, strategising until not a pawn remains.

Eames was right to be wary.

“Am I to suppose that you are the walkabout superweapon that my friendly Yanks keep mentioning?”

“I don’t think the military would approve of your snooping however friendly you perceive them.”

Eames smiles. Arthur licks his teeth. Sharp, white, cutting.

“I’ve learned through experience.” He says, the tiredness of a greying man infecting his words. “I’m not a weapon.”

Eames nods but cannot intertwine the actions or words with the man himself. Even though he now knows better, Eames still dreams of a ballerina, an unsheathed sword, a boy in his father’s suit.

~

Eames should have known better. The weight of this falls on him entirely.

They are on the wrong side. Well, technically one of them must be on the right side but it appears they are both on opposing sides and to Eames, this is proving to be very wrong indeed.

Eames’ team is supposed to be the only team infiltrating the mark. Arthur is not on Eames’ team and yet Arthur is also here.

Eames is wearing a woman’s skin. He thinks it may be this that leads him to be the last person to face Arthur’s wrath. Though he cannot hide forever. Arthur notices the shifts in dreams better than anyone Eames has ever met.

“You should know Leclerc is out of bounds.” He says, voice steady, eyes steady, hand, wrapped around his Glock, steady.

Eames shrugs, a strap of black velvet sliding down his shoulder. “That’s what made it fun.”

“Your extractor hadn’t completed her mission. I need to know what you found out.”

Eames stares at those dark eyes, framed by lines and crinkles, and feels his axis tilt.

“Why don’t you ask the mark?”

“If I ask Leclerc, I have to give you up.” The left side of Arthur’s face twitches. Eames imagines himself dirtying Arthur’s neat, clean plan that leaves Leclerc none the wiser. “I’m sure you would rather I didn’t.”

“I didn’t find out anything.”

“Liar.” Arthur’s arm has not moved from where he is pointing the gun at Eames. Eames wonders if his muscles ache yet. “I could take you down another level and torture you.” He threatens.

“Another level?” Asks Eames, simultaneously berating himself for not pretending he already knew. Arthur’s smirk is coated in something akin to condescension yet lacking in the expected arrogance. It takes Eames a second to recover. “Why would you do that?”

“More time,” Arthur answers, pensive, alert. Eames thinks he understands his eyes now. Arthur shoots him.

Arthur tells the armed men above that they do not know anything. Eames’ wrists chafe from the rope but no one dies that day. Eames ponders this mystery when he cannot sleep, when he is brushing his teeth, when his hair gets swept up by the dispersed air of a fast lorry. He feels the rush of life, he endures the mundane, and he wonders for what reason he is still here to enjoy it.

Arthur does not tell him. Arthur never tells him.

~

Eames hears that Arthur is an assassin. That he is training people’s subconscious to resist extraction, to recognise if their views are being swayed in their sleep. That he is taking his enemies into the furthest depths of their minds and leaving them there. That he has infiltrated the U.S. Armed Forces and destroyed project Hypnos. That he has a hoard of PASIV devices hidden somewhere. That he has been searching for reliable chemists to analyse compounds. That he broke into Oxford University. That he has fallen in love with a woman. That he is getting married. That he has killed more people than he has years and that he has more years than his birth certificate tells. That he is impossible to kill.

Eames does not believe everything he hears.

~

Arthur settles down eventually. He relaxes into the skin that once seemed unfamiliar to him. His violence mellows. Eames even catches him taking a second to watch a flock of birds fly overhead. He pauses, he breathes, he gets around to spending all the money he has worked for.

“I didn’t believe it before, but love has changed you.” Eames comments.

Arthur’s eyes are still fast and sharp, the wrinkles have yet to catch up topside. Although Arthur does not snap, he does not turn cold. In fact, he smiles.

“Love, vengeance, take your pick.”

Eames is aware that Arthur is making a joke. At least he assumes he is. Except Eames feels so naked in the face of it that all he can do is cough and turn away to cover himself.

Arthur introduces Eames to Mal and does not twitch as they shamelessly flirt with one another throughout the entire meal. Mal is the finest red wine Eames has ever tasted. After dinner, they wander around the 11th arrondissement and wind up in the 20th.

Mal says, “This is me.” And kisses Arthur before pulling Eames into a tight embrace. “It was lovely to meet you, Eames. I can tell you are good for him, non?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been a good influence on anyone my dear.” He winks and kisses her hand.

The air is warm, borrowed from the evening walks of his childhood holidays abroad. Arthur is sparkling tonight. A collage of reflections, the Parisian lights glistening, shimmering, shifting on his skin. The tell-tale tension of work has been shed from his shoulders and spine and he walks as if he does not have a destination in mind, hands in pockets, eyes perusing the streets. He is breath-taking.

“Can I ask why you’re not staying with Mal, tonight?” 

Arthur coughs, maybe he blushes, maybe it is just the wine or all those beautiful, shimmering lights.

“We don’t have sex. I mean we have in the past, sort of-” He stumbles and sighs, “It’s not like that.”

“But you love her?” Eames pushes even though he knows he has no right. But some foreign, undiscovered part of him wants to have that right, wants to be let in, wants to be accepted into the fold.

Arthur sighs, they lean against the railing and gaze out over the Seine. Eames is delighted by Arthur’s side profile. The lift and slope of his nose, the obtrusion of his lips, the strong slant of his forehead.

“More than anything.”

~

Arthur does not marry Mal. She marries another American, a blonde innovator. Eames wonders if he loves her half as much as Arthur did. Does. He finds it hard to imagine, but maybe that is simply him projecting.

When Dominick Cobb kisses Mallorie Cobb née Miles, Eames glimpses it for a second. The look of absolute adoration, the willingness to give everything, do everything for her.

Eames wonders if Arthur will learn to love Dom like he loves Mal or if Arthur will keep his distance, make himself small and unthreatening.

They dance together. Eames holds Arthur’s waist and feels a yellow balloon fill with helium and rise through him. He smiles. Arthur smiles back.

~

They go on holiday after that. A red string of robberies follows them. Art, collectables, flashy cars. Arthur drives, gloves, leather. Eames reads poetry in the language of the country they are in. Hand sometimes resting on the other man’s thigh. Most of the time not.

Neither of them talks about the floating chasm stretching and warping the space between them. Distorting it beyond comprehension. Eames’ cigarette smoke sometimes pushes its way through, glancing at Arthur’s hair and neck, passing the invisible line that Eames cannot.

It is only when Eames is intoxicated. Thrumming with the warm, dark honey hum of whisky that he asks, “Do you still love her?”

Arthur stares back at him. Shoulders slumped, chin high and defiant.

“I will always love her.”

~

They pretend they never spoke those words, shoving them deep back into the sinful enclosure they were supposed to be imprisoned in. It does not help. Pandora’s box can only be opened once. The chasm grows.

Eames fights his fear of drowning. The water rises all around them. Arthur, cool, calm, unaffected – lies on his back and floats. He closes his eyes and goes somewhere else. Eames wants, desperately, to follow him into this other world trapped behind his eyelids but he is scrambling, disappointing every swimming teacher he ever had with his inefficient use of limbs, his pitiful attempt at treading water.

He leaves Arthur in Cairo and runs until the water only reaches in shallow waves to cover the tops of his feet.

He is too close. He has never been this close before. He thinks of the way that Dom looked at Mal before he kissed her after he promised his life to her. He thinks of how for a while he doubted Dom would love her as much as Arthur. Arthur who will love her forever.

The most painful part is that he thinks Arthur sees Mal the way Eames sees him.

He hates himself. Hates himself for becoming the sort of fool that he always sneered at. And like a dream, he has no idea how he got here.

~

Arthur, he learns, is not the type of man who allows unresolved issues to run amok like strays. He prefers to carefully take each issue, packaging it away neatly amongst his other gratified boxes. Now, he stands at Eames’ front door, tilting his head as if he does not understand the peculiar nature of his visit or why, Eames, in a middle-of-nowhere cabin, would open the door gun in hand.

“It’s snowing.” He tilts his head upward, white flakes gracing his cheeks and eyelashes. Eames longs to kiss each one away. “I think that’s reason enough to let me in.”

Eames feels like the mouse in a cat and mouse chase. He stands, cowering, backed into a dead end, unable to outrun, outfox, any longer and even though the cat approaches with claws retracted Eames cannot stop the turbulent pounding of his tiny heart.

“God damnit, Eames,” Arthur whispers, leaning up to place lips carved from ice against his own. “We need to talk.”

Arthur has never kissed him before. Eames stops, saves the memory, placing it delicately in a long awaiting frame and then promises himself to forget it. Those sorts of memories create the greatest of fools.

He lets Arthur in. He does not let Arthur _in._

~

“Mal married Dom,” Arthur states, comfortably making coffee in Eames’ kitchen. Eames watches the black liquid cascade as Arthur pours it from a height.

“Is your memory alright, pet?” He jokes, he deflects, he pretends. “You might recall I was there.”

“Yes, I seem to remember we danced.” Arthur smiles and Eames is transformed. He can almost feel every atom of his being light up as his pessimism silently retreats through the backdoor without a glance.

“Yes,” Eames laughs, cannot help himself. “We did.”

“Mal loves me. She calls me at least every month, ends every call with those words.”

“Does Dom know?”

Eames races to catch his thoughts which of their own accord have managed to escape the grasp of his cynical second-guessing and are running wild. He does not want to know where this path leads. It is too dangerous, too dark from staying unlit for too long.

“He knows.” Arthur chuckles to himself, eyelashes flitting downward as he picks up his mug. “Whether he likes it or not is a whole other ballpark, but he understands. He doesn’t fight it.”

“I’m not sure I could trust something like that.”

“I’m not the people who have disappointed you, Eames. Don’t project that onto me.” In moments like this Eames remembers that Arthur keeps a viper at the back of his throat where one used to live on his tongue. A man in their line of work can only mellow so much.

They sleep together because Eames is sick and tired of not letting himself have that which makes him happiest. They sleep together and Eames is awestruck by the delicacy of Arthur’s touch, the sensitivity of his skin, the raw edges of his vulnerability. They sleep together and Eames wants to pull at each loose thread until Arthur completely unravels for him, lays himself out like a map so that Eames can trace every road, valley, river, and scar.

Disconsolate, he feels the darkness of the path closing in on him and refrains from pulling the thread. Another time, he lies to himself. Another time, just not right now.

In the morning, when slats of golden light are crossing Arthur’s skin and bones, fragmenting his whole and yet casting him in a newfound etherealism, Eames tells himself he is still sick and tired. Sick and tired of being second best. Sick and tired of loving those who do not love him back.

People believe that it is Eames’ ability to act the part for cons that allowed him to forge. However, it is perhaps a forger’s most guarded secret that the secret to forging is to be deeply, desperately insecure. The types of people who bend and malform themselves to better suit the personalities of others; that is what forgers are. Broken people, accommodating to the whims of others in and out of dreams.

They sleep together and Eames leaves in the morning, even though an unwitting Arthur basking in the first strands of sunlight is the most beautiful vision he could ever imagine.

Eames knows that dark paths never lead anywhere good. This time Arthur does not follow him.

~

Everything changes when Mal dies. Her husband is a fugitive, lost somewhere away from the red stripes and white stars. Eames cannot align murder with the way that Dom gazed at Mal on their wedding day. Time has only increased the reverence of that memory.

Simultaneously, he struggles to decide what he believes to be the truth. Not that it matters what he thinks but for some reason, he deems it important. Knowing what he knows, knowing that Dom married a woman who not only loved but was in love, with another man; complicates things further.

Despite his cracked sorrow, Eames feels a thankless gratification that he walked away from a situation like that. And sometimes, when he is drunk and maudlin, flagrantly alone, he will try and convince himself he believes it.

He sends out a message that he is looking for Arthur because he knows if Arthur does not want to be found, he will not be. Even by Eames. After two months, Arthur resurfaces, and Eames follows. What he finds is not easy to swallow.

Arthur is on fire. He is screaming bloody murder and burning up hotter than the sun and there is not a single thing Eames can say or do to make him slow down. He is reduced to the passive viewer, the haunted onlooker, biting his fingernails as he watches on his sofa at home, hopelessly yelling at the black screen.

The flames lick through Arthur’s hair, coats his arms and torso. Red, orange, yellow cast bright against his pale, beautiful skin. Shockwaves of misplaced colour where only neutral material should cover.

He is a man absorbed. He has been taken. He is entirely, enticingly engulfed in the inferno. He is part of it now. The two are conjoined, inseparable, the line between man and flame blurred beyond human recognition. Arthur’s hands are full of petrol and he douses it everywhere he sees fit.

Eames cannot bear to look at the blaze anymore. It burns his eyes.

~

When Eames returns it is to the smell of acrid smoke infecting his lungs. Wisps of grey tinging his skin. Arthur is hot and smouldered, lying naked in a pile of his ashes. He is charcoal now, blackened, ready to break, ready to use.

Eames knows he should not, but he only came here to glimpse the blaze and now that it is gone, he feels no use for the buckets of water he has spent weeks collecting. He had been ready to fight fire, not scramble in the dust.

Eames goes to wipe his hands of it.

Later, Eames will hear of the partnership between Dom and Arthur. How Arthur has resurrected the old master, has become his cane. Eames thinks of his great aunt, a widow who when her husband died found solace in helping the families of the church. A widow who should have taken time to fix herself before fixing others.

Yet he is unsurprised that Arthur rises as all good phoenixes do. Eames watches from a distance as he spreads his newfound wings and moves into the sky, the breath of blue beating against his bare back. He has made it out alive. This time he has made it out alive.

Eames can only worry about the next time.

~

During Inception, they refrain from mentioning Mal. Eames wonders if Arthur tells Ariadne, who pulls questions out from her sleeves like a magician pulls hankies, that Mal – the real Mal – was ‘lovely’. He always uses that word to describe her, Eames has noticed. Eames has an unspoken theory that it is because it is easier to say ‘lovely’ than ‘I loved her’ or even ‘I love her’. He does not ask. He feels his heart break.

Arthur does not tell him. Arthur never tells him.

He remembers Cobb explaining to Arthur, ‘We were lost in limbo and maybe a part of me, the selfish part, was happy. I could finally catch up with you. Finally, be the person she had spent the most time with. I didn’t realise it would cost us everything.’

Arthur’s face was torn in two. ‘I guess it is no surprise then. Having spent more time in dreams than in the real world who would know what is real. Who could say?’

They left it at that and even though Eames had a million different questions writhing inside of him, he knew he had no place.

Dom is returned to his children, right-hand man forsaken. Eames returns to his cabin, the cabin with the coffee, the cabin that had been compromised. He waits.

~

His phone buzzes, angrily insistent for his attention. Eames stares at it uncomprehending. Picks it up.

“I’ve just had a conversation with Dom, it didn’t go well. Can I see you?”

“You know where I am.” Eames inhales the crisp, woodland air. Stares out at the lake amidst the fog-shrouded hills. “Come.”

~

They exchange pleasantries when Arthur arrives, with enough luggage for at least a fortnight. Eames does not comment. For two days they talk without saying any proper words. They do not mention Dom, or Mal, or Arthur’s bloodied knuckles. They flit around each other, dancing carefully on a precipice that claims no urgency.

“I guess I already knew, deep down.” Arthur starts as Eames feels one foot slip off the side. “He told me on the plane to Paris – fucking Paris, Eames – that he had done inception before. I guess I just – I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t allow myself to. Not then.”

Eames pauses, unsure. He sets the mugs of coffee down on the glass table. “Darling, I’m not sure I follow.”

“He incepted her, Mal. He spun that godforsaken spinning top in the doll’s house of her childhood home and made her believe that her reality wasn’t real.” Arthur’s breath hitches, his throat visibly clenching around his words. “You know she got that spinning top after we woke up. Immediately, knew she needed something to keep track of reality. The dream, the projections, had all felt so real- those fucking drugs. God damnit she’d have been better off without it.”

“You don’t know that,” Eames reassures, hand stroking down Arthur’s spine, adrenaline coursing through him. He briefly wonders if it is normal for emotional situations to activate his fight or flight. He decides it is unimportant.

“I spent a lifetime with her. It should have been enough. But it wasn’t-“ Dark curls wrench forward as he chokes out a sob, “it wasn’t real, Eames, god it wasn’t real. She was so young. James, Phillipa, they’re real. We-we never real, oh my god, Eames-“

Eames thinks of his great aunt, how she died before the grief caught up with her. He holds Arthur as tightly as he can while the younger man heaves himself through the most wretched pain and thinks for a moment that perhaps death is kinder.

~

Eames had been right, all those years ago. Arthur was a weapon, a dirty bomb. Moulded from inconsequential dynamite, caged in a life of unforgiving training, transformed into radioactive danger. He had been part of a wider experiment, the last man standing.

Training dreams broke all men, some more literally than others. The weapon did not realise he was made of more than steel and explosives until he met Mal.

Mal who was now gone, forever.

~

Eames thinks that Arthur is most at home in autumn. He is most himself. Without sounding like a cheap magazine quiz, autumn is Arthur’s corresponding season.

Indulging in domesticity Arthur cooks coq au vin, doing what Eames calls his ‘kitchen dance’, as he twirls and hums along to the radio. Sometimes Arthur sits somewhere and paints, odd abstract details like books and dust, or leaves and the blade of an axe. When Eames had first found him painting, he envisioned realism or impressionism, grand, sweeping landscapes. Instead, he was stuck comparing the finished painting to various details, trying to figure out exactly what Arthur’s subject had been.

Mal affects their lives even in death. She had taught Arthur to paint, to cook like her favourite bistro, to dance. Eames had never believed in such pitiful cliches and yet sometimes he cannot help but admit that she lives on through him.

Arthur who curls up with his glasses, book, and warm cocoa, sideways in an armchair, legs slung over the arm. The man is made of golden leaves, cable-knit sweater vests, and love songs from the sixties.

It is enough to make Eames cry.

He does not know why; would not be able to answer if asked. Taking the time to recompose his quaking strings, Eames will walk outside and remember the steps he took to get there. Other times he will trace the edges of Arthur’s paintings. It is in these moments, and these moments only, through tear-clouded eyes that each brushstroke makes _sense_.

Profundity always catches you at the strangest of times.

~

Arthur goes away for a week at a time to be with Dom. Eames does not think Arthur learned to love Dom in the end, not like he did Mal. Not like he does Eames.

However, the two men face each other on opposite sides of the same river. This will never not be true. They have loved the same woman, each spending a life with her, each heartbroken at her passing. Even if they were not friends, this would be enough to bind them together eternally.

Eames is fascinated by the fact that he does not mind. There is no steady drip of jealousy building in the back of his mind. No fear of abandonment, no dents in his armour of trust.

Arthur screws up his face and calls him an idiot. “If I’d known you’d have wanted to come I would have invited you.”

It follows that Arthur and Eames become ‘uncles’ or as Eames likes to call it ‘unpaid babysitters’ to Mal’s children.

~

Arthur has lines around his eyes now. Although he will forever be in a losing race, cursed to never catch up with the years he has experienced. Eames sometimes feels out of his depth, living his life with a man who is occasionally hit with the wisdom of being a hundred years old. Most of the time though, he is simply Arthur.

“I could have loved you both.” He says one night, wrapped in Eames’ arms. “We’ve wasted so much time.”

Eames kisses his head, light and careful. “We can have as much time as we want.”

Arthur sounds pained, gritted teeth and tense strings. “I want our time together to be real. I can’t lose-“ His words meet a dead end, trapped and suffocating.

“I know, my love, I know.”

~

Eames had always thought love would make him vulnerable. That a love as strong and potent as this would leave him scrambling for purchase, always on the back foot, ready to fall at any moment. Fall into what? Eames could never tell, never wanted to hang around to find out.

He thought that perhaps if he were the only permanent thing in his life, if he held himself in his own hands and no one else’s, that he would not be left broken when he inevitably disappointed himself.

It would be different if it were someone else holding him. He would never expect the drop and so would be engulfed in that feeling of falling forever.

And yet Arthur’s hands are steady, strong, capable. Eames does not know when he let himself be propped up by them but once he realised, he did not move. Perhaps nothing in life was permanent, perhaps he could rely on no one but himself, that did not change the fact that when faced with the choice; Eames would always pick a life with Arthur over one without him.

That was his truth.

Sometimes when the nights were long and the man he loved was being emboldened by sunlight on the other side of the world, Eames would tiptoe out and whisper his secrets to the moon and stars.

“I’ve never loved anyone like this. I doubt I ever will again.” And then he would sigh. “I know it’s not the same for him. It doesn’t matter, just sometimes I’ll look into those brown eyes, and wonder if he’s trying to picture her instead of me.”

The moon will shine on him sympathetically, reflecting the light from the star that is shining down on Arthur and Eames will feel satisfied.

~

Neither of them takes as many jobs as they used to. They spend more time together though Eames still thinks of all the time they spend apart, travelling, domestic duties, buying groceries, work. In a dream, it would be all their time, raw in the subconscious.

Eames thinks back to Cobb, ‘I could finally catch up with you’.

Eames will never be able to catch up.

~

Arthur paints Mal one day. Not like Eames had ever seen her, smaller, older, frailer.

“Now that I’m taking fewer jobs, I’m starting to dream again.” He smiles up at Eames. “This is how she is in my dreams. This is how I left her.”

Eames’ heart feels tight, constrained. He feels his smile reflect this, but Arthur is looking back down at his work.

“I think for the first twenty years or so we didn’t age. That only happened when we completely lost track of it all, and even then, there would be flashes of brown hair and unwrinkled skin.” Arthur seems happy, content.

Eames holds his tongue.

It is only when Arthur wakes, thrashing and screaming Mal’s name through broken glass, staring at Eames with unrecognising eyes and a pale face that Eames makes himself heard.

“She’s not real, Arthur. God, I wish she was, but Mal is dead. She killed herself. You need to let her go.”

Arthur backs away from him, bare spine hitting the windowsill. “Who are you? What have you done to Mal?” His whole body is shaking, tears cascading down his cheeks. Eames cannot find a single word to say.

~

In the morning, Arthur is overly apologetic, covers his every action and word in honey and flowers in the hopes that the sweetness will detract from the bitterness of the night. Eames thinks it pointless. There is not a single piece of him that is angry.

He calls Dom because Dom is Mal’s husband and Arthur’s friend and the only option that makes any sense.

“Is it a shade?” Dom asks, immediately suspicious.

“No, she only started appearing in his natural dreams but that’s not really the problem. He can’t exactly help that.”

“What is the problem?”

“I think he’s starting to forget.”

Dom inhales, deeply, thickly. Eames waits.

“Can you get him here?”

“He’s not an invalid.”

“Great well I’ll see you on Thursday, bring Arthur’s PASIV.”

~

“I know what you’re doing,” Arthur says, refolding the clothes Eames had hastily packed into a suitcase. “I’m not Dom though, I’m not haunted by the guilt of incepting my wife and watching her die.”

Eames holds his bone fine wrists and stares into Arthur’s eyes and Arthur by some unspoken truth understands.

When they arrive at the Cobb’s, Dom takes Arthur on a walk while the kids climb all over Eames.

“Does your Dad never take you to the park?” Eames laughs, head tilted as he stares at James dangling off his arm. “I’m not a climbing frame, you know?”

The two men return in the evening with takeout and veteran smiles. Once the children are in bed, Eames takes out the PASIV.

“I am assuming we are doing this now, yes?” He asks, unfurling wires as his stomach remains in knots. Arthur nods at him, places a comforting hand on his shoulder.

~

Eames and Cobb sit like two men who have never been directly linked to each other and do not know how to act when alone. Cold resentment trickles through Eames, woken from its long hibernation.

“I would not want to compare your suffering, after she died.” He says, words pushing out before he filters them. “But Arthur was hurting too.”

“I know.”

Eames rubs his palms together. They feel dirtied, as if they are covered in a film of invisible dust. The corner of his mouth flicks upward, sharp, and treacherous.

“Didn’t stop you dragging him through hell.”

He expects Cobb to fight back, ask him where the hell he had been. But Cobb is a father, an aged man; he does not say a word. So, Eames continues, unleashes every guilt plagued attack, cemented behind brick for all these years.

“Did you realise what he was going through? Did you even want to know? So, wrapped up in your own pain.” He cannot bring himself to meet Cobb’s invasive stare. He wants to burn a hole through the carpet, throw that lovely vase on the side at Cobb’s head. “He was torturing himself. He took the pain your shade delivered as punishment. He stuck by you even though he thought you fucking hated him. He loved Mal that much, and you let her torture him. Can you imagine how painful that was?”

Cobb is silent, considering. Eames’ ragged breaths fill up the room until Cobb admits, slowly, sadly. “I was a bad friend. I didn’t realise how bad until it was too late. We’ve talked through this, Arthur and I. He knows I wasn’t trying to hurt him with the shade, it was just a manifestation of guilt. He doesn’t like to hear my apologies though. I think he finds them pitiful.”

Eames takes pause, wonders how badly Arthur would scold him for this ambush. _I can fight my own battles, Eames._

“In his head, he was using you to cope just as much as you were using him. Except he’s here,” Eames sighs and gestures to Arthur’s sleeping form, “only now dealing with his own problems.”

Cobb sighs, squints at Arthur’s sleep softened face. “I can’t go back and change things, Eames. I wish I could.”

Eames feels angry, protective, lost. “I don’t know what I want you to say. ” He admits, head hung low.

“It doesn’t matter what I say, it won’t stop Arthur going through this.”

“Do you think he’ll come back up?”

Cobb fixes him in place with flat blue eyes. He does not answer. Stuck between a choice of Mal or Eames, Eames knows which he would pick. Cobb would pick the same.

~

Eames remembers his first confession to Arthur, his first ill-advised admission of feelings.

‘Loving you goes against every self-preservation tactic, every instinct for survival, every carefully curated wall and line I have written in, well what now turns out to be sand.’

Arthur had raised a hazy eyebrow and swiped the whisky because some things never change (and Eames’ inability to say what he means without liqueur loosening his tongues is one of them).

‘Are you waxing poetic or telling me you love me?’

‘Can a man not do both? I think you forget, as an Englishman there is a fair chance, I am a long-lost descendant of the likes of Shakespeare-‘

Arthur had gripped the lapels of Eames’s jacket then, the glistening bottle falling to the floor. Sometimes, when Arthur kissed him like that – in that way that made Eames forget his own name – Eames remembered Dom kissing Mal at their wedding, remembered ice-cold lips against his own, and felt completely content.

~

Eames goes down not to sway Arthur, not to convince him, not to beg. Eames goes because he must know. Because not knowing will kill him. Because the hope will kill him.

He finds an old couple sat on a bench, atop a hill littered with autumn leaves. He holds his breath. He listens to the words being carried in the wind.

“After all those years, I felt I understood you. But even then, when we woke up and were young again, I still sometimes felt lost in your orbit.” She strokes a curl of his hair behind his ear. “You were the soldier I first met, battling for the other side. I could never understand that part of you.”

“You were the only person who understood me, Mal.” His voice breaks making Eames’ leg buckle from under him. “Until I found you, I was lost. No one else knew me, not after what happened.”

“You’re wrong, mon cher. He took a few years to understand you completely, but I think it was always unsaid between you. He always saw you. Entre deux coeurs qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles.”

The musical silence of a dream plays while Eames waits for Arthur’s reply. He feels the solid weight of his heart, beating, crying out, ready to shatter at any moment. He holds his breath.

“And that’s what I need.” Arthur sighs, “I need to feel known.” Eames can tell from his voice that he is crying. “And that’s why I need to let you go.”

“I know, mon chéri. C'est bon. Ça a toujours été bien.”

Arthur places a gentle kiss on her forehead and the dream swirls around them, cascades of colour, raw with emotion. Eames has never seen a dream end like this before. It is as if Arthur is forcing it to.

The chapter of the book closes.

~

“She was so beautiful,” Arthur says, stroking her photo in the Cobb’s family home. Eames’ chest constricts at the words, cutting off his air. The last few days he has been caught up in desperation, killing himself over a question that he cannot bring himself to ask.

Why did you not stay with her?

Arthur knows, he smiles. “We didn’t choose each other though. We were forced together, trapped in a life half spent running from projections.” He looks at Eames, meets his eyes.

Eames’ head tells him the room is spinning, his rolling stomach agrees. Yet Eames’ eyes are suffering from a phenomenal case of tunnel vision, the entire span of his image is consumed by Arthur. Arthur, who lays a gentle, strong palm over Eames’ frantic heart.

“Mal chose Dom, and I…” He pauses, tilts his head as if to make sure Eames is listening, “I chose you, Eames. I still choose you. I’ll choose you until the day I die.”

Eames stops, he cannot get enough air. There is surely not enough air in the world to help him now. An overwhelming intensity of emotion crashes over him, sweeps over every floodgate he has ever put in place, and makes his entire body quake. Arthur holds him until the panic subsides.

Afterwards, he wonders how much was panic and how much was ecstasy, relief.

~

Eames never thought he would do this. Never imagined, even as a child, that he would end up here.

He coughs, clears away the phlegm and tar, the accumulation of his sins and wrongdoings. This time he is as sober as the concrete beneath his feet and the world is made anew, a bed of freshly washed linen.

He gets down on one knee.

“Arthur-“

~ END ~

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> -Entre deux coeurs qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles: No words are needed between two hearts in love (This is a proverb written by French novelist Marceline Desbordes-Valmore)  
> -C'est bon. Ça a toujours été bien: It's okay. It has always been okay.  
> (Sorry! My French is pretty rusty and I don't think I ever really learnt how to differentiate between okay and good, I had it as 'été correct' before so please feel free to correct me!)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope it all made sense (though if you have any questions feel free to ask, I did chop a load out so sorry if anything is unclear). 
> 
> Kudos & comments are massively appreciated as always! Love to you all, and stay safe! x


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